14.04 upgrade failed completely

[stephen35]

Hi,

I was upgrading from 13.10 to 14.04 desktop edition and suddenly the upgrade failed with out of memory errors about 20 minutes in. As far as I can see I followed all the instructions completely. My machine is an elderly P4 based machine with 1.5 GB RAM and 300 GB free hard disc space. After this abort, I can't get much of anything to work on my system, though I can login.

I did have one non-standard thing running. In order to make remote desktop work from a Windows 7 box, I had to install the KDE desktop in addition to Unity.

My question is, am I totally screwed here? Is there anyway of restarting the upgrade? When I run update-manager nothing happens - just nothing. If I do a fresh install of 14.04 can I protect my data already on the drive? Although I have it backed up on other machines it is going to be a major headache to restore it.

All in all, I am pretty disappointed. I have been running Ubuntu for six months and it has been stable and I have liked it. Now it has totally blown up in my face. Upgrades are always risky but I thought that I would OK. Obviously not :*(

[Navneet_Kumar]

Yes,of course the upgrades are risky.you should have installed 14.04 from the scratch after backing up your data.

Nevertheless u can get your data back by using the tool gparted(on a bootable usb).........and then can install 14.04 freshly..........hope this helps.

[JonPaul]

My upgrade crashed too. I managed to get the system up using the previous kernel - various things including touchpad and wireless lan were not working at this point.
I ran sudo apt-get install -f to try and fix broken packages.
It told me to run sudo dpkg --configure -a
The installation continued where it left off and completed. Everything now seems to be OK.
Despite what Mr Kumar says I have upgraded successfully from 12.10->13.04->13.10->14.04
Hope you come right

[JonPaul]

Maybe with your spec a more lightweight version like lubuntu or xubuntu would work better....

[kurt18947]

Were you using any proprietary drivers or PPAs? Anything 'non-standard' running at the time of upgrade can mess things up. I have successfully done in-place version upgrades but only with plain-jane installs.

[jprzybytek]

Ah, I hate upgrades - the amount of time it takes and the nagging config issues end up taking more time and energy than a fresh install. Keep in mind that 14.04 is an LTS so likely this is the last version you will be able to use. Good that the LTS is supported for 3 years!

I'd backup your data and do a fresh install. Your P4 with 1.5 g should work fine (I have a similar config).

[stephen35]

Thanks for the replies. I decided to give up and install 14.04 from scratch and completely wipe the drive. That seemed to work fine. Then the next day everything has gone wrong. I have so many problems I do not know where to start.

In no particular order: performance is appalling. Windows take a minute to close.
Ubuntu has "forgotten" my user password and allows me to login without a password! There is still a login screen, I just don't have to enter a password
Shutdown no longer works. I have to do a shutdown immediate from the command prompt

Worst of all, Ubuntu has done something to my PC so now it refuses to boot from a CD so I can't even scrap the bl**dy installation and start again. Ubuntu has stopped recognizing my CD drive so I can't run any install program from within the OS.

I almost think I have been infected by a trojan but how could that have happened? I Really do not know what to do other than to scrap the hard drive. I can't even get rid of the installation. It just will not allow me to reboot from from CD.

Help!!!!

[mörgæs]

Are you able to boot Lubuntu 14.04 from USB?

[stephen35]

No, my PC is quite old and the BIOS does not support booting from USB.

I just do not understand why I am no longer able to boot from CD/DVD drive. According to my BIOS set up, the PC should boot if I put a bootable disc in the CD drive. But it doesn't, Ubuntu will boot from the hard drive regardless.

This all started with Ubuntu generating "system errors" this morning and things have just worse and worse. I now just want to scrap the installation and start again. But it will not even let me do that.

13.10 was stable and fast for me. I wish to God I've never changed it. I would go back to it now if only I could get rid of 14.04, which I can't.

[mörgæs]

Worst of all, Ubuntu has done something to my PC so now it refuses to boot from a CD

It's impossible. You might have a failing CD drive but Buntu can't control that.
I suggest that you try a selection of CD's, especially single-use ones. Do you have a spare CD drive you could swap?

[stephen35]

I have created another Ubuntu 14.04 installation DVD and that booted fine. The old one must have suddenly become corrupt but it does seem a bizarre and unlikely coincidence. I have reinstalled 14.04 (again!), completing wiping the old installation. I have installed and configured Samba and have configured ufw to permit only Samba traffic inwards. I shall leave the system for several days to see if it remains stable. There is an update pending but I will not install it, as everything went wrong after I installed that update before on Saturday evening.

[mörgæs]

Good, but as already mentioned I would suggest Lubuntu. Running Ubuntu on such old iron is not recommended.
Also Lubuntu fits to a CD - just in case you need to reinstall some other day.